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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28866888">going on with broken bones</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellafarallones/pseuds/bellafarallones'>bellafarallones</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Adventure Zone (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous Historical Setting, M/M, Possession, Resurrection, Trans Indrid Cold, possession sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:13:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,945</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28866888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellafarallones/pseuds/bellafarallones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You could say this much for Duck Newton: he walked to the gallows with his head held high. There was a hood over his face, so he couldn’t see the crowd, but he hoped at least that the guy he’d been flirting with two nights ago at the local tavern wasn’t there to see this. That he might be remembered as a law-abiding citizen by <i>someone</i>, at least.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Indrid Cold/Duck Newton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>going on with broken bones</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The day that Duck Newton was to be hanged dawned bright and warm, and the sky was clear blue, as if even the clouds didn’t want to witness what was about to transpire. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, Duck thought, he’d had a good run. Longer than some people got, certainly, though he wished he’d had a chance to get married. Or even fall in love. Or have children. Or any of those other life milestones he’d never quite found time for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d been convicted of highway robbery, though of course he hadn’t done it, and he suspected the local magistrate knew as much. He had, however, recently reported said magistrate for poaching on the lord’s forest, resulting in a hefty fine. It wasn’t so much that he cared about the lord’s property, but if someone killed all the pheasants the lord might crack down on the people who poached for survival.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You could say this much for Duck Newton: he walked to the gallows with his head held high. There was a hood over his face, so he couldn’t see the crowd, but he hoped at least that the guy he’d been flirting with two nights ago at the local tavern wasn’t there to see this. That he might be remembered as a law-abiding citizen by </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone, </span>
  </em>
  <span>at least. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A cool hand on his arm guided him into place, and only when he felt the slight weight of a rope around his neck did Duck start to get nervous. Hanging was something of an art form, and if the rope wasn’t long enough you could dangle there and slowly choke, but if the rope was too long you could be decapitated, or - </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But this hangman seemed to know what he was doing, because the trapdoor opened, there was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>crack, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and the darkness of the inside of the hood was replaced with another, far deeper night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waking up after that was a surprise, to say the least. Duck went from dead to choking and thrashing, finding the strength to sit up as clumps of earth rained down around him. Someone had their hands on his shoulders, someone crouching next to his grave. “Shh,” they said. “It’s alright. You’re going to be okay.” Red glasses glinted in the moonlight. This was the hottie from the bar, his cloak puddled on the ground around him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What -” said Duck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The timing is not good, in three minutes there’s going to be some teenagers coming here to make out, I’ll never understand -” he pushed a waterskin into Duck’s hand. “Drink. You need to get out of here. I, ah, took the liberty of collecting your things, I hope you’ll forgive the impropriety.” He gestured at the suitcase on the ground next to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck drank greedily, strength returning to his limbs. His shirt was streaked with mud. What had </span>
  <em>
    <span>happened?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand flew to his neck. He’d been hanged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You need to get up, we’re running out of time,” said Indrid, because that was his name, Duck remembered it now, and Indrid was pulling Duck to his feet, significantly stronger than he looked, folding Duck’s fingers around the handle of the carpetbag and giving him a little push. “Go, Duck. Go. You’ll be safe if you go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck stumbled out of the graveyard, water spilling out across his fingers, and went. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid turned away and started in the opposite direction, just as he heard the whispered giggles of the young couple coming over the hill. “Well,” he murmured to himself. “Safe as anyone ever is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was he technically a fugitive from the law? They’d sentenced him to hang, and then they’d hung him, so probably not: his punishment had already been carried out. But then again, one could also argue that the sentence was </span>
  <em>
    <span>death, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and as far as he knew he wasn’t dead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>These were the questions Duck wrestled with once he stopped to catch his breath. He’d found himself in a port city, large enough that he wouldn’t be noticed, though that didn’t stop him from looking over his shoulder every time he thought he saw Indrid among the crowd, which happened several times a day. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two days before his execution, he’d noticed Indrid looking at him from across the bar. Their eyes had met, and Duck had gone over to him. “You bear-hunting?” he had said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid had smiled behind the rim of his drink. “If I was, do you think I’d have much luck?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck pretended to consider. “You might.” Then he leaned closer. “You’re new in town, aren’t you? I know I’d remember a face like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even more than that he’d have remembered Indrid’s smile, a smile that even now painted itself across his dreams. They’d flirted for a while, but neither of them made a serious move, and eventually Duck accepted that the night was over. “Will I see you again?” he said just before he left.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be around,” Indrid had replied. Duck had been arrested before he’d made it home. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now his working theory was that someone had somehow bribed the hangman to make the rope too short and cut him down before he was dead. But how had Indrid known to be waiting in the graveyard at that precise moment? Maybe Indrid had </span>
  <em>
    <span>been </span>
  </em>
  <span>the hangman? The timeline was hazy, certainly, and the moment of death had seemed so absolute, the last thing he remembered that horrible </span>
  <em>
    <span>crack..</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anyway, Duck found a job on a ship. His back was strong and his hands calloused, what did it matter that he’d never so much as seen the sea before? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sea bided her time at first, allowing Duck enough time to start feeling like he knew what he was doing, but  before the week was out the barometer plummeted. It was early afternoon when the  and the wind was threatening to tear through the sails.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sailors looked at each other. Someone would need to climb the rain-slick rigging to take down the sails in the middle of a storm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck groaned. “I’ll do it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A hundred feet off the deck, rain plastered his shirt to his back and he resolutely avoided looking down. Of course the moment he took one hand off the rigging to fiddle with the sails was the moment a wave chose to slam into the ship. The shock of impact tore his grip loose, and for a moment he was flying. Then he hit the black-bulging swells and everything went dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck woke up cold and wet. He was lying on a beach somewhere, presumably the shore that had been just barely visible from the ship. Waves lapped at his feet, acting all harmless and innocent now that the storm was over and the sun was setting. He sat up and groaned at the chafe of sand in his clothes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just up the beach, a slender figure in a blue cloak was building a fire out of driftwood. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We gotta stop meeting like this,” Duck groaned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid only nodded. Duck staggered to his feet and walked back into the water, felt it lift the sand from his skin. The horizon was flat and empty. If his ship was still above water, it had sailed on without him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you mind if I… uh. I’ve got sand in places sand shouldn’t be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid shrugged. “Go right ahead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck undressed and plunged further into the waves. The water was freezing, but cleanliness, or at least a salt-encrusted approximation thereof, was worth the temporary discomfort. He chased the sand out of the crevices of a body he could have sworn was done for, then struggled back into his wet clothes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t suppose you have a towel?” he said when he’d joined Indrid by the fire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid shook his head. “I can dry you with magic, if you would be alright with that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Magic users were neither common nor widely trusted, but Duck had been friends with one back in Kepler. “Please.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid snapped his fingers, and Duck felt like he was standing inside a giant bathroom hand dryer. In a minute or so he was dry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks.” Duck sat down stiff-legged next to Indrid in front of the fire. “So what are you? Some kind of omen of near-death experiences?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” Indrid poked at the fire with a stick. “Also I wouldn’t call resurrection a </span>
  <em>
    <span>near</span>
  </em>
  <span>-death experience.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? I’m getting </span>
  <em>
    <span>resurrected?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“You die. You stay dead for a few hours. You come back to life. What would you call it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, smarty-pants. Can you tell me why the hell it’s happening?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t the slightest idea. Have you made any deals with powerful magical beings lately?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not that I know of.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sat in silence for a moment. Duck took the opportunity, the first real chance he’d had since the night they met, to look at Indrid: the cowl neck of his midnight-blue cloak, bifurcated in the back like wings; the black roots of his silver hair, which reached his shoulders where it had fallen out of its bun; and the round red lenses of his spectacles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid took a box of graham crackers, a bag of marshmallows, and a couple of chocolate bars out of his bag. “S’more?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid settled the supplies on the sand between them and passed Duck a toasting fork. Duck had been to enough campouts in his life to know how to do this, and he held his marshmallow carefully near the base of the fire until it was evenly browned. Indrid crammed three marshmallows at once onto his own toasting fork and stuck them into the flames until they caught fire. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck winced when Indrid pressed the molten marshmallows into a s’more and bit into it. Something occurred to him. “If you have nothing to do with it, why are you always around?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid chewed and swallowed, seemingly impervious to mouth-burns, before answering. “A humanitarian obligation to help my fellow man? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you know where to be?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Prophetic visions.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a while there was no sound but the waves, the crackling of the fire, and the crunching of Indrid finishing off several more s’mores.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I were you I’d go back east,” said Indrid finally. “There’s work out there for a man as good with the wilderness as you are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The government would never hire me. I’m too dead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid shrugged. “Suit yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you have any news from Kepler?” said Duck. “I suppose they all must think I’m dead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t stay for very long after you left, but as far as I know, most of them think you’re a vampire. Seeing as your grave was empty the next morning.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jane adopted your cat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You met Jane?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At your funeral.” The fire’s flickering shadows made the expression on Indrid’s face unreadable. “So many people love you, Duck.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck looked into the red embers of the fire. His limbs ached with exhaustion. “I don’t suppose you have a spare blanket I could borrow for the night, do you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid laughed and started searching through his things. “Now I know you had no idea what was happening, your lack of preparation makes a lot more sense.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How am I supposed to prepare for being dead?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good point.” Indrid tossed over a couple of blankets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you.” Duck spread the blankets out on the sand and curled up between them. The sound of the waves faded into the background as he drifted off. Why hadn’t he suggested sharing a blanket? That would have been so much more pleasant, Indrid’s arms around him, falling asleep knowing what Indrid’s hair smelled like… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Duck opened his eyes again, the fire was dead and Indrid was gone. He’d left the blankets Duck was wrapped in, though, and a set of clothes, in the pocket of which Duck found a wallet with enough money in it that he couldn’t get mad at Indrid for leaving him behind. Presumably someone like Indrid had places to be, anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck managed to keep himself alive for almost a year, and in that time he didn’t see Indrid at all. He took a job pouring concrete for a dam and spent so long in the air he got over his fear of heights - he hadn’t minded heights before he’d been hanged, but plunging to your death twice had certain effects.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the night Duck broke his not-dying streak, Indrid made camp on a hill overlooking the unfinished dam. He laid out handfuls of dry leaves and sticks inside a circle of stones, and when he snapped his fingers, a fire burst into existence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last time he’d tried to book a room at an inn, the innkeeper had took one look at him and hissed </span>
  <em>
    <span>witch. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Warlock,” he’d sighed, but hadn’t tried to argue when she told him she’d have to charge double in case he summoned any demons in the room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now Indrid settled himself on the ground next to the fire, his back to the dam, and stared into the woods on the other side of the hill. Tree branches crashed against each other in the wind, and the negative space of sky between the leaves formed the shape of a beast with wings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please,” Indrid murmured.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Please what, dearest? </span>
  </em>
  <span>said a voice formed from the sounds of the night, from the invisible masses of cicadas voicing their lust, from the drone of mosquitos and the rustle of night-beasts through the underbrush. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please take away my feelings for him.” Indrid took a deep breath. “It hurts so much and he’s going to be in my </span>
  <em>
    <span>head, </span>
  </em>
  <span>please make me stop hurting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know you can! You’ve made me what I am, I know it would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing </span>
  </em>
  <span>for you to do this for me.” What Indrid was was a fossil, human tissue long since decayed, replaced with magic instead of rock. To love hurt like walking on two broken feet, his heart doing something it wasn’t meant for and was no longer capable of. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Indrid, </span>
  </em>
  <span>whispered his patron soothingly. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I know you’re hurting right now. But I promise you, you are more human than you think you are.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Easy for you to say,” Indrid grumbled. But he opened his bag and started laying out the components of a spell: a mirror, a knife, and a tiny, perfect diamond. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck had died earlier that day, and rather horribly, at that. Falling into wet concrete, his corpse entombed by more concrete poured on top of him. When he came back to his body he’d find himself buried and suffocating. Or he would, if Indrid didn’t intervene. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Visions flashed through Indrid’s mind. He could see Duck’s fingers twitching, feel the roar of his blood starting to flow again through his veins. His consciousness was about to return.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid put the diamond, which he’d purchased the morning after he’d had his first vision of Duck’s latest death, onto the center of the mirror. Then he picked up the knife and drew its blade across his own palm. When the blood fell, it fell </span>
  <em>
    <span>through </span>
  </em>
  <span>the mirror, as though the surface was not there at all, washing the diamond away with it. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Mmm, </span>
  </em>
  <span>said his patron. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Delicious. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The mirror’s surface was clean. Indrid closed the cut on his hand with a thought and pulled his cloak closer around his shoulders to wait.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Duck opened his eyes the world was red. Fuck. The last thing he could remember was falling. He’d been smart enough to close his eyes before he’d hit the ground. That settled it: no more heights for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello, Duck,” said Indrid’s voice out of his mouth. No. Indrid’s mouth. In Indrid’s body, which Duck was now also in, looking out through Indrid’s red sunglasses. “This was the best I could do. I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?</span>
  <em>
    <span>”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t get a chance to ask first and my body isn’t as nice as what you’re used to but oh, please don’t be mad, I - if you’d woken up in the dam you would have just suffocated again, over and over again, so I hope you agree that even this is preferable -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was something strange about the way Indrid’s eyes worked, the grass and the campfire and the trees fragmented and refracted like he was looking at them through a kaleidoscope.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“- and it’ll just be a month, there’s going to be a hurricane and your body will be washed out and I can put you back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Indrid.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be sorry. Thank you for making me not suffocate in a dam.” Duck could feel the slight weight of glasses on his nose and a cloak around his shoulders, see Indrid’s long legs and slender hands, hands that now clenched and unclenched when he told them to. “Can I touch you?” He was unsure of the etiquette of sharing a body. But he did want to touch Indrid. Had for a while, if he was being honest with himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you’d like,” said Indrid softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duck hugged himself, stroked down his arms and up his thighs, nothing intense, but he could feel Indrid’s breathing quicken. He could feel other things, too - Indrid, apparently, had a vagina. Indrid drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, effectively shutting down Duck’s survey of his body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what’ve you been up to lately?” said Duck conversationally. “It’s been a while.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I follow the will of my patron,” Indrid said simply. “I spent the last three months hand-pollinating a certain variety of apple blossom he particularly enjoys.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wow.” Duck suddenly felt a lot less bad about the lack of excitement about his own life. “Who is your patron? Am I allowed to ask that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A little laugh. “You can ask whatever you like. My patron… his true name, in the olfactory language of his kind, is something like the smell of the first wildflower of the season. But I call him the mothman.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is saving me one of his directives, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” The body they shared shifted uncomfortably. Duck could read Indrid’s body language so much more acutely now that they wore the same frame. “I, ah, have accumulated enough PTO to do some things on my own initiative.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I appreciate it, I really do.” Indrid did not seem to know how to respond to sincerity, so Duck kept talking. “Your vision is different than mine,” he said carefully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My eyes are compound,” said Indrid simply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” said Duck. He realized he’d never actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>seen </span>
  </em>
  <span>Indrid’s eyes, always hidden beneath opaque red lenses. “Is there anything else… different about you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid pushed his sleeve up above his elbow and ran his fingers across it. The skin above the joint was significantly less elastic than it should be, almost chitinous. “My joints,” said Indrid. “I think the internal structure of ligament and cartilage is completely gone.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean, gone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid pulled his sleeve back down and sighed. “I’ve been in this game a long time. As the parts of my human body break down, my patron replaces them the only way he knows how. With insect parts. As I said, this body is not nearly as nice as the one you’re used to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m flattered that you think I have a nice body,” said Duck. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do,” said Indrid, voice now as light and teasing as the night they’d first met. “How is it that you’ve never been married? You’re quite the catch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe because I never met anyone in Kepler quite like you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re far too charming.” Indrid’s heart was pounding, now, but neither of them said anything more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a while they crawled over to Indrid’s bedroll and lay down, curled up with their hands interlocked. Through Indrid’s eyes they saw the light of the fire a hundred times over. “Goodnight, new roommate,” said Indrid sleepily. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight,” said Duck. This time, at least, Indrid would not be gone when he awoke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid woke up gasping, and the grayish-purple of the dawn reminded him of a bruise. He had dreamed he was looking up into Duck’s face, Duck’s face that he remembered so well even though he hadn’t seen it in months, kissing Duck’s lips, and then Duck’s strong hands were pressing him down by the shoulders - they were in a bedroom, somewhere, on a soft bed with soft sheets - and covering Indrid’s body with his own. </span>
</p><p><span>He could feel Duck in his head with him, like being crammed together in one compartment of a revolving door, and it occurred to him that it might have been as much Duck’s</span> <span>dream as his, that the boundary between their two consciousnesses might be permeable in sleep. </span></p><p>
  <span>He pressed his thighs together. He was so aroused it was uncomfortable. Had been aroused, honestly, ever since Duck had first touched him the previous night - it had been so long since anyone had touched him like that, </span>
  <em>
    <span>gently, </span>
  </em>
  <span>even himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Could he risk touching himself? He couldn’t tell if Duck was awake yet or not. He dared to move his hands downwards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Indrid,” said Duck, but since it came through Indrid’s throat it came out as a breathy moan. “Sorry - this is fine, I just, I can shut up, just pretend I’m not here.”</span>
</p><p><span>The idea of Duck watching him get off</span> <span>turned him on like hell, but not as much as the alternative. Indrid stilled his hands and let out a needy moan.</span></p><p>
  <span>“Do you want me to touch you?” said Duck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, yes please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he was touching himself, but he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t, </span>
  </em>
  <span>it wasn’t his initiative even if it was his hands, his hands now as hesitant as if they’d never touched him before. And Duck could feel everything Indrid did, knew what felt good and what was too much, and so he did it perfectly, slipping one hand into Indrid’s underwear and stroking through the wetness there. Who was gasping, now? Both of them?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid took back control, just for a moment, just to get one of his fingers inside him, and Duck curled it up perfectly, though Indrid was sure Duck’s own fingers would have been better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Indrid,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Duck said, his voice broken by their shared moans. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I - I’m not </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span> at sex,” Indrid confessed, “I usually can’t even get off and it’s -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine, Indrid, whatever you want, you don’t have to - I just want you to feel good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid almost cried at that, because he wanted </span>
  <em>
    <span>Duck </span>
  </em>
  <span>to feel good, he’d swum half a mile through the furious ocean for Duck, barely able to keep his nose above water as he dragged Duck’s cold corpse, followed visions of death for hundreds of miles so Duck wouldn’t return to life alone. And now Duck was touching him like he loved him back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re so fuckin’ hot like this,” said Duck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Voyeur,” Indrid teased as his hips jerked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now that hand was stroking Indrid’s cheek, unbearably gently. “Do you blame me? A face like yours, a body like yours, of course I like looking at you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Indrid whimpered. “When you get your body back…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’re you gonna do? I can put on a show for you too, if you like.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, please, and let me kiss you…” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, Indrid, </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t get off, of course his body didn’t cooperate that much, but dawn passed very agreeably into morning, and need faded into dull ache as the movement of his fingers slowed. “You alright?” said Duck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Better than alright,” said Indrid, and he knew he must have looked very foolish pressing kisses to his own palm but it was the closest he could get to kissing Duck. And for now, at least, it was enough.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>duck's deaths are based on The Highwayman by Johnny Cash! this is kinda weird so id love to know what you think. also come find me on tumblr @bellafarallones &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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